Edmonton Notes for 8/25/2013

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

• The Fringe officially wrapped up today with another record-breaking year! More than 700,000 people attended (up from 680,000 in 2012 and 576,000 in 2011), and a total of 117,618 tickets were sold (surpassing last year’s tally of 112,006). Check out the holdovers here, and check out the news release in PDF here. You may also be interested in the Festival Review Aggregator.
• For the second year in a row, amateur star Lydia Ko won the CN Canadian Women’s Open title. The tournament was held at Edmonton’s Royal Mayfair Golf Club and raised $2.7 million for the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation.
• ETS celebrated a milestone with Route 747 this month: 100,000 passengers have been transported between Century Park and the Edmonton International Airport. It’s a great service, I have used it many times.
• The U of A is cutting costs to deal with budgetary pressures, but one place they’re spending more than ever is government and corporate relations. The school spends $850,000 a year!
• A report on Edmonton’s post-secondary economy is now available from EEDC. Here’s the PDF.
• There’s a big decision on the Southeast LRT line coming up this week. A one-year delay would add up to $70 million in inflationary costs, according to the City.
• Council will also be deciding on what to do with the former Molson Brewery site this week. While the developers plans may be an improvement over Oliver Square, they don’t go far enough for critics like the Oliver Community League.
• August 23 was declared Treaty 6 Day in Edmonton to honor City ties with Aboriginal communities.
• The Edmonton Marathon took place bright and early this morning. CBC has a good Storify of the event.
• EPS Chief Rod Knecht would support a proposal to hang out tickets for illegal possession of small amounts of marijuana. “If we’re looking for efficiencies and there’s no decriminalization or legalizing, I support it,” he said.
• Tempers rose yet again this week at a community meeting about the proposed supportive housing project in Terwillegar Towne.
• The City of Edmonton has created a new leadership program for youth between 13 and 17 called Community HEROs. HEROs stands for health, empowerment, responsibility and opportunity.
• Are you an engineer? ERIEC is looking for mentors for their upcoming Speed Career Networking event. I have participated as a mentor in the past, and I can tell you it’s worthwhile!
• Here’s a small write-up on EPL’s Makerspace.
• Sportsnet announced its 2013-14 Edmonton Oilers regional broadcast schedule this week. They’ll be featuring 59 regular season games, including 9 all-Canadian matchups.
• Marshalls arrived in Edmonton this week, opening new locations at South Edmonton Common and Manning Town Centre. They are the first two stores in the province.
• Here’s a great story about Kevan Lyons, known as The Poet of Churchill Square. He has a book of poems available at Tix on the Square for $20, or you can buy it directly from the man himself in Churchill Square.
• Get out there and meet Brittney if you haven’t!
• From Emerson Csorba: Why Alberta Needs Less Complacency and More Young Entrepreneurs.
• There’s much more news available in the blog post headlines and news release headlines over at ShareEdmonton.

Matt Gibbs came up with the idea of the Edmonton Freezeway for his master’s degree thesis, and it recently won the top prize in the Coldscapes international design competition. The idea is to build a year round greenway and winter skating lane. Pretty neat idea! Here’s a video explaining the concept:

Here are some upcoming events:

• Head down to Churchill Square tomorrow (Monday) at lunch for an epic ping pong battle! Mayor Mandel and EEDC’s Brad Ferguson will go head-to-head following a demo by the Edmonton Table Tennis Club and a series of local personality doubles matches featuring Brittney Le Blanc, Mark Connolly, Ryan Jespersen, Ryan Tumilty, Scott Johnston, yours truly, Graham Neil, and Linda Hoang. The event will be emceed by Donovan Workun and attendees are encouraged to wager loonie/toonie bets for charity. The mayor has chosen to support the Abbottsfield Recreational Centre Society, Brad has chosen to support Junior Achievement. See you there!
• The U of A’s Office of Sustainability is hosting another Campus Sustainability Tour on Wednesday at lunch.
• Symphony Under the Sky kicks off on Friday evening at Hawrelak Park!
• Movies on the Square returns this weekend, with epic on the 30th and Goonies on the 31st.
• We hope you’ll come out to our Parkade Party on Saturday evening! We’ve got lots of fun things lined up for the Vinci 103 Parkade between 103 Street and 104 Street just south of Jasper Avenue.
• The New York Cosmos are in town on Sunday to take on FC Edmonton.
• The Tour of Alberta takes place in Edmonton on Tuesday, September 3. The City is encouraging you to plan ahead because several streets in and around the downtown core will be closed to traffic that day. Expect major delays!
• For more upcoming events, check out ShareEdmonton.ca. Enjoy your long weekend!

Thanks to everyone who came out to What the Truck?! at Louise McKinney Riverfront Park on Saturday evening!

Photo by Dave Feltham